Politics

AMLO Says Mexico to Probe Deforestation in Flagship Program

Government to explore how to improve tree planting program
Bloomberg News investigation revealed widespread deforestation

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
Photographer: Alejandro Cegarra/Bloomberg

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By Max de Haldevang

March 10, 2021 at 2:33 PM UTC

Updated on

March 10, 2021 at 3:09 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Wednesday his government would investigate how to improve his flagship environmental program, after a Bloomberg News report showed it had encouraged widespread deforestation.

The $3.4 billion Sembrando Vida program, or Sowing Life, pays people in rural areas to plant trees in deforested zones, but may have caused 73,000 hectares of forest coverage loss in 2019, according to a study by the World Resources Institute. Farmers in southeastern Mexico showed Bloomberg News during a recent trip to the region how they had chopped down and burned trees to be able to receive government payments to plant saplings in degraded land.